Ecoscenography & Sustainable practice in Puppetry and Performance
IMPULSE! -project hosts a seminar on sustainable practices in puppetry and performance design.
Time: Friday 13 December 2024 at 10:00–13:00 EET
Place: Online, Zoom
This presentation and workshop will explore ecoscenography and sustainable practice in puppetry and performance through the lens of two Australian designers, Bryony Anderson and Tanja Beer.
Australian designer/maker Bryony Anderson has developed a deep relationship with materials over nearly three decades of practice in puppetry and performance. Her approach could be described as animist frugality: using precious resources with care and caution, and respecting them for their properties. As Head of Workshop with Terrapin Puppet Theatre in lutruwita /Tasmania, Bryony led a transition to sustainable workshop practice. Through conducting emissions audits she realised that material use is the tip of the iceberg in theatre's environmental impact, and became an advocate for rethinking the traditional ways of conceiving, producing and touring work.
Tanja Beer's work explores the creative application of ecological thinking to performance design through the concept of Ecoscenography. Ecoscenography is a new approach to theatre production that seeks to dissolve the apparent boundaries between artists, materials, audiences, and the wider ecosystem, expanding creative responsibility and encouraging reflection on how we make work and communicate through it.
During the session, Tanja will introduce to the concept of ecoscenography (ecological design for performance), where the cycles of co-creation (pre-production), celebration (production), and circulation (post-production) are integrated into the creative processes. She will invite participants to explore the ideas and practices of ecoscenography and to generate conversations and ideas that stimulate discussions on the future of scenography in a climate-changed world. Bryony will delve into the principles of material-informed design using salvaged and low-impact materials, the challenges of scaling up a personal practice to an organisational one, and the necessity for systemic change. Together they will set an imaginative challenge to participants and take you on an investigation into material informed design and co-creation.
Attending the event
The seminar free and open for everyone interested. The focus group is artists and other performing arts professionals interested in sustainable pratices. The lectures will be recorded and later put available on IMPULSE! Project's Youtube account where it will be visible also afterwards as a recording.
Seminar will be held on Zoom platform. Join the seminar here
Schedule:
10:00–11:30 EET Presentations
Bryony Anderson: Artistic practice 30min
Tanja Beer: "pracademic" approach on ecodesign 30min
QA & discussion 30 min
15 min break
11:45–13:00 EET Workshop: Material-informed design in puppetry
13 December 2024
About our guests
Bryony Anderson is a first-generation Australian designer, maker, and creative director with a lifelong focus on resource stewardship. She has been working in puppetry and performance since 1997: her work has toured nationally and internationally and appeared in galleries, festivals, theatres, schools, streets, and museums. She has led over 130 creative workshops in rural, desert and urban communities, and continues to mentor emerging artists.
In 2011 she established One Off Makery in an off-grid shed in the mountains of New South Wales, which focused on developing a vocabulary of techniques for working with salvaged materials and inviting local community into creative projects. After relocating to Tasmania, Bryony became Lead Maker and Head of Workshop for Terrapin Puppet Theatre. In that time a thriving workshop was established, training makers, producing shows and developing systems for sustainable practice.
Living in a remote community, Bryony experienced devastating fires and floods and witnessed first-hand the upheaval and distress that disasters can cause. A new project, Axlebone, was launched in 2024. From a design foundation, it will move towards envisioning possible futures with young people, interlinking creative processes with community and exploring the landscape where climate, trauma and imagination meet.
Dr. Tanja Beer is an ecological designer and community artist who is passionate about co-creating social gathering spaces that accentuate the interconnectedness of the more-than-human world. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Queensland College of Art and Design and the Co-Director of the Performance + Ecology Research Lab (P+ERL) at Griffith University.
Originally trained as a set and costume designer, Tanja increasingly works across many disciplines, collaborating with landscape architects, urban ecologists, and gardeners to help raise awareness of environmental issues. Her most notable project is The Living Stage, a global initiative that combines spatial design, horticulture, and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable, biodiverse, and edible event spaces.
Tanja's extensive career as a designer, educator, and researcher is based on over 20 years of theatre practice in Australia, Europe, and the UK. Her innovative concept of Ecoscenography has been featured in numerous programs, exhibitions, articles, and platforms around the world. She is the author of Ecoscenography: An Introduction to Ecological Design for Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
